Poetry Friday -- My Nose Takes a Walk in Fall

My Nose Takes a Walk in Fall

dust of acorns, crushed
summer-gone spicy gardens
skunk musk, just a waft


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019



I got the best gift in the mail yesterday! Along with two books that will inspire my writing, there was a box of "matchsticks" to Spark Creativity. I pulled one out: "Take a walk, tuning in carefully to everything you smell," and found this poem! So much fun! I can't wait to try more of them. Thank you, Brenda!!

Catherine, at Reading to the Core, has the Poetry Friday roundup this week and a post full of gratitude.

Poetry Friday -- Poetry Gifts

Photo via Unsplash

I've received three (edited to add one more) thoughtful (thought-full) poetry gifts in the past week.

1. I wrote this haiku for #haikuforhope, and Amy Ludwig VanDerwater wrote a response haiku that helped me get my head on straight for the day. Thank you, Amy!

avocado toast

(practice mindfulness)

four days until winter break

(sipping my hot tea)

new student today

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Honey Nut Cheerios

 (a little scared) 

four days until winter break 

(drinking orange juice) 

will my new teacher be kind?

©Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, 2018

2. Steve Peterson tweeted me this poem, proving for good that proximity of geography is not required for a friend to know the nooks and crannies of your heart. Thank you, Steve!

3. A childhood friend I haven't seen for decades (along with geography, add time to the equation of friendship) tagged me with this article on Facebook: Why Reading Poetry Is Good For Your Brain. Some of the studies are a bit dubious, but none of us are going to argue with the conclusions, right?

4. How could I not celebrate YOU?!? This community of poet-teacher-writer-allaroundgreathumans feeds my soul. Special wink and nod to the #haikuforhope crew. It's been a wonder-full month. As always, I won't want to stop. Daily writing in a form brief enough to keep me writing daily...yeah, I'll probably keep going.

Happy Friday! (That one's especially for the active duty teachers in our crew who might be reading this on Saturday or next week! We've got this! One more day of joy and craziness with our classrooms full of beloveds!) 

Happy Poetry Friday! Buffy Silverman has the Full Moon/Solstice edition this week.

Poetry Friday -- My Heart Is So Full

Unsplash photo by Tim Marshall

My heart is so full. This Poetry Friday community is a wonder of the modern world. We've been at this (some of us) since 2006. That's more than 120 roundups, countless comments, and, recently, an upwelling of friendly challenges and exchanges.

Which brings me to the Winter Poem Swap, offered and organized by Tabatha (The Opposite of Indifference).

My heart is so full. There was much joy in digging into another's blog for inspiration, then creating a poem/gift combo that was just right for her.

And then I got my gift from Linda Mitchell (A Word Edgewise), and my heart ran over. Linda wrote not one, but FOUR poems all stemming from my November Poetry Friday post in which I "poemized" the words of Seth Godin. She took the theme of "maps" and ran with it, writing a response to that Seth Godin post, a found haiku from Ted Kooser's "Map of the World" (which was shared that same week by Little Willow), a ditty written at an AASL workshop, and, my favorite, an echo to Jane Yolen's "Always A Poem." Accompanying the poems was a hand-decorated map-themed clipboard that is going to school with me to remind me to keep the compass of my heart set to the True North of friendship, creativity, thoughtfulness, and joy that Linda's gift exemplifies.

An Always Poem

Again winter follows fall,
stick arms of trees wave
furiously, turning our clocks.

Again a freeze follows fall,
crystals bloom in weak light
leaving a mess of our map.

Again stillness follows fall,
we seek direction,
home at every compass point.

Again dark follows fall.
A chair, a fire, story warms
despite a season that strips bare.

Again follows
fall, a winter.


by Linda Mitchell, ©2017



Diane has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Random Noodling.

May 18 is still available on the Jan-June 2018 Roundup Schedule. Thanks to all who have taken a slot!

I'm only halfway through commenting on last week's roundup, but I vow to complete that round before beginning this week's! While we're on the subject of not keeping up, I am on track with #haikuforhealing on Twitter, but I still need to fancy up a week's worth over at Poetrepository.

On the subject of commenting: I've tried to figure out what's causing your comments to disappear. The best I can tell is that for some reason, our blog continues to load long after you arrive at the page and even though everything appears to have loaded. If you stop the loading, I think that will prevent the comment drops. I think. Those of you who have re-commented multiple times, thanks for persevering.

The Kindness of Author Friends

Back in October, before I had to cut and run for home, my students benefitted from the kindness of a couple of my author friends.

My first read aloud this year in my fifth grade classroom was The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan. The story of a class of fifth graders who are fighting to save their school was the perfect way to start the year. My students read along on Kindle as we listened to the full cast audio via Audible. We had great conversations about the poetry forms, the characters, and the inferences that a reader must make when reading a verse novel.

I crossed my fingers that Laura would be available for a quick Skype visit after we finished the book, but lo and behold, she was driving from Cleveland to Cincinnati and was willing to stop in Dublin for an hour to visit with my students. She brought her big binder of the book and talked about her planning and revision process. The students were wowed by the length of time it took for the book to grow from the idea stage to a published book.



The day after Laura visited, I presented my students with their very own complimentary copies of Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong's new Poetry Friday project, You Just Wait. Some immediately wanted to dive in and try out the Power Play activities and Power2You poetry prompts, while others read through the story in the poems first.

After I got back from Colorado, I met with a small group who had written poems from some of the mentor poems in the books. It was an unfortunate series of events that resulted in not being able to do more with this magnificent gift from Janet and Sylvia, but my students and I remain thankful for their generosity.

Two Gifts

by Hugh MacLeod at Gapingvoid.com

Enjoy the blessings of the day!